


Death and the Three Kings

by stellatundra



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 23:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1960704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellatundra/pseuds/stellatundra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which it just so happens that Death of Westeros is extremely busy, and calls in some help from an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death and the Three Kings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brutti_ma_buoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/gifts).



> With thanks to [redacted] for all your betaing help.

“A holiday?” Susan Sto Helit crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her grandfather suspiciously. “Might I remind you that the last time --”

I PREFER TO THINK OF IT AS A SECONDMENT, Death interrupted.

“A secondment? Someone’s making you do this, aren’t they,” Susan said, her glare intensifying. “Tell me, because you know I’ll --”

NOBODY IS MAKING ME DO IT, Death said, in the closest he could manage to get to a placating tone. Really, he reflected, it was a comfort to know you had a granddaughter who would willingly disembowel people (for a given definition of people) for you in your old age (for a given definition of old age). I AM PERFORMING A FAVOUR FOR AN OLD FRIEND.

Susan opened her mouth and closed it again. She did not say “I didn’t know you had any friends.” It was awkwardly apparent to both of them, though, that this is exactly what she would have said if she had said anything at all.

“What sort of favour?” Susan ventured, trying to imagine Death painting a fence or minding the cat.

OH JUST HELPING OUT. DOING WHAT I USUALLY DO. JUST... SOMEWHERE ELSE.

“But... What you usually do is, well, death. And you’re everywhere. How can you be doing it _somewhere else_?”

THE DISC IS NOT THE ONLY WORLD, YOU KNOW.

“Of course it’s not,” Susan said. She’d seen enough things not to be surprised. She liked to think of herself as knowledgeable. She taught Geography, after all. Still, as often happened when her grandfather popped in for tea, she found herself a little out of depth. It was not a feeling to which she had ever quite become accustomed. 

OF COURSE NOT, Death said, waving a dismissive bony hand, as though she was a child or a simpleton who still believed the Disc was round. THERE ARE OTHER WORLDS, OTHER DEATHS. IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT DEATH OF WESTEROS IS EXTREMELY BUSY RIGHT NOW, SO I SAID I WOULD LEND A HAND.

“But how will you get to this other world?”

IT’S QUITE A STRAIGHTFORWARD INTER-DIMENSIONAL TRIP. FOR IMMORTAL BEINGS.

“Do you do this often?”

I PREFER NOT TO. I GET TRAVEL SICK.

“Right. But what’s going to happen here, while you’re off on this... secondment?”

It wasn’t exactly a rhetorical question, more one of those questions which half way through asking it, you start to have a sinking feeling that you know what the answer is going to be, and then you really start to wish you’d never asked it. Susan didn’t know if there was a name for that sort of question, but she thought there probably ought to be. 

I THOUGHT YOU COULD FILL IN FOR ME.

“Ah.”

IT IS THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS AFTER ALL. I CHECKED.

“Summer holidays aren’t that long, you know,” Susan said testily. It is an unproven yet generally accepted truth that summer holidays last for differing amounts of time for different people. For teachers, summer holidays are far too short, while for parents they last far too long. There were students at the Unseen University researching this phenomenon as a new branch of relativity. 

IF YOU NEED MORE TIME I’M SURE THERE’S SOMEONE WHO WOULD BE WILLING TO HELP YOU OUT.

Susan felt the mark on her face growing more visible. She hadn’t been embarrassed like this in a while. She hadn’t bargained on her grandfather, who happened to be the anthropomorphic personification of Death, making sly digs about her love life. 

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye on things here for you. Have fun.”

I’M NOT ENTIRELY SURE THAT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES BUT I APPRECIATE THE SENTIMENT.

 

*

Death did not blink. It wasn’t really a function he was equipped to carry out. But he did take a moment to adjust to the difference in light, after the self-inflicted unconsciousness of the journey. Albert had suggested a sort of Klatchian wristband he used on longer cart journeys. They weren’t, as it turned out, particularly effective in inter-dimensional travel. Or perhaps it was just that they only really worked on people who actually had pressure points. 

Death took a moment to check that he still had his scythe and his sword with him. He’d been told he might need the sword. Apparently there were a lot of kings. 

Braavos was his first stop. It was not unlike Ankh-Morpork, there were guilds for everything, including assassins. There was even street food of dubious quality that Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler would have been proud to sell on his stall. Here, he found out, Death was worshipped as a god by some. He found himself scrutinised quite levelly by a skinny street-urchin concealing several weapons on her person. This was not worship but outright defiance. People oughtn't to be able to see him, unless it was time. That was how things worked. But here was a girl who could look Death in the face without blinking. He had the unaccountable feeling that it was neither the first nor the last time for her. He almost felt a chill in his bones as he moved on to Westeros.

 

*

The first king died in a tent. 

“Is this another trick of Stannis’s?” he demanded.

I AM NOT A TRICK, Death said.

“Where am I? Where’s Loras? Where are my guards?”

Death decided to take one question at a time. The first was a common question. Admittedly, Death felt slightly less equipped to answer it with any kind of geographical accuracy here, but the stock answer would do just as well.

YOU HAVE NOT MOVED PHYSICALLY. YOUR SPIRIT HAS MERELY PASSED OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE.

“What? Put me back.”

I’M AFRAID IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT.

“How does it work, then?”

HOW DID YOU THINK IT WOULD WORK? NEVER-ENDING TORMENT OR ELYSIAN FIELDS? YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY, THE AFTERLIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT.

King Renly gave him a distinctly unimpressed look. Death sighed. Or rather, he would have sighed if he had had breath to sigh with. He blamed Susan. People really didn’t want the human touch. They didn’t want the Death touch either, not really, but the immutable constancy of him was reassuring to them, in a way. 

“That witch told me to look to my sins. Am I to be punished for them, then? I never really believed all of that nonsense: the Seven, the Lord of Light. Killjoys, the lot of them.”

I DON’T IMAGINE THEY WILL BOTHER TOO MUCH WITH YOU IN THAT CASE.

Renly blinked, as though trying to parse the idea of an afterlife in which the gods existed but wouldn’t be bothered with someone who didn’t believe in them. Then he threw back his head and laughed.

IS SOMETHING FUNNY?

“Just thinking of what Stannis must have waiting for him when he pegs it. The poor bastard.”

 

*

The second king died at a wedding. As with the Disc, this world was a place where there were many different and at times conflicting cultures. He surmised that here it was traditional for people to die at weddings. Sometimes many people. It probably saved a lot of work if they could use the leftovers from the wedding feast at the wake, he supposed.

“I died.” The young king sat up and looked around him. He was quicker than the last one; Death had to give him that. Then again, from the looks of things, he could hardly have been left in much doubt.

YES. Beating around the bush never helped anyone. Death lowered the sword. 

“This wasn’t really what I was expecting,” Robb Stark admitted.

IT NEVER IS. WHAT WERE YOU EXPECTING, OUT OF INTEREST?

“I’m not really sure. I thought I’d have more time.”

ALL MEN DO. 

Death inclined his head. If this boy had no clear idea what he expected or deserved, there was only one thing for it. 

LET ME SHOW YOU THE DESERT, ROBB STARK, said Death.

 

*

The next king was even younger. And a good deal less accepting of his fate. 

“I don’t care who you are, I will have you eviscerated!” screamed Joffrey Baratheon, first and last of his name. 

Death pondered. He wasn’t supposed to do this, not really. But sometimes people ought to get what they really deserved rather than what they thought they deserved. There was no justice, only him. But perhaps sometimes, just sometimes, he could make his own justice. 

THIS WAY PLEASE, he said, pointing towards the revolving door marked _Reincarnate as a Rat_.

 

*

“HOW DID IT GO?” Susan asked.

YOU’RE DOING THE VOICE, Death pointed out.

“AH. SORRY. IT TAKES A WHILE to snap out of it. How was Westeros. Was it... educational?”

OH YES. I LEARNED A NEW GAME, CALLED THE GAME OF THRONES.

“Oh? How do you play?”

YOU WIN OR YOU DIE.

“Yes," Susan conceded, "that sounds like your sort of game."


End file.
